Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss

Rosalind Krauss’ article Clock Time examines Christian Marclay’s most recent work The Clock  (2010).  Krauss uses her term ‘technical support’ to describe Marclay’s use of commercial sound film in which he joins end to end film clips to create pure synchronicity.

In his anthology of film clips Video Quartet (2002) Marclay uses sound synchronicity where in The Clock he projects synch time (projection at twenty four frames per second, synchronised with the psycho-physiological facts of optics) which allows for a seamless movie via the “phi effect” where frozen images cut together at a certain speed per second create constant motion.

Marclay gives being or identity to the audience through what Louis Althusser describes as  “Ideological State Apparatuses” where the viewers are transformed into the role of the subject. Marclay does this through his use of sync time where he coordinates the watches and clocks of the ‘reel time’ with the audiences ‘real time’. His series of film clips feature suspenseful, anticipatory shots of characters staring at clocks and watches in fear of what disaster awaits them. With the viewers taking on the position of the camera and role of the subject, they too experience this sense of uneasy anticipation.

Marclay, through his “technical support” and methodologies of pure synchronisation, Krauss states that The Clock has given rise to the ‘ “invention” of a technical support and, consequently, a new medium’.

While Krauss is an art critic and theorist, I felt that this article was aimed at an audience with a greater understanding of theories and ideologies in contemporary art.  At times I found this article difficult to understand due to it’s technical vocabulary such as “intermittent reperfusion”, “phi effect” and “interpellation”. I spent alot of time researching terms so as to understand what Krauss was discussing. A critical evaluation of this film could have been more reader friendly with an understandable explanation of the terminology or simplified vocabulary. I also felt that the article made so many references to other films, ideologies and theories, which to the uneducated reader, made a short piece into what became a very long read due to the research required to make sense of her piece.

An Archival Impulse by Hal Foster

Hal Fosterʼs essay, An Archival Impulse, discusses the pervasiveness and the avantegarde
manifestations of contemporary archival art. Traditionally archival artists categorized
historical information in an institutionalised museum format. Foster suggests that today,
even though archival works may differ in artistic characteristics, he points out that they
share ʻa notion of artistic practice as an idiosyncratic probingʼ into all aspects of society,
events and history. He believes that contemporary archives are informal and ʻramify like
weedsʼ through ʻmutations of connection and disconnectionʼ.
Although Foster makes reference to many archival artists, he focuses on the works of
Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant and Tacita Dean for their international standing in
archival art, saying that these three artists alone ʻpoint to an archival impulse at work
internationally in contemporary art.ʼ
Furthermore, Foster states that this ʻimpulseʼ is not new, citing the works of Alexander
Rodchenko (1920ʼs) and John Heartfield (1930-1950), yet he believes that due to the
recent works of Hirschhorn, Durant and Dean, an archival impulse now has itsʼ own
distinct character and is becoming a ʻtendency in itʼs own rightʼ, focussing on their ability to
use mass culture in a ʻdisturbedʼ and obscure way which presents the viewer with an
ʻalternative knowledge or counter-memory.ʼ
Foster suggests that contemporary archives are brought to ʻlifeʼ allowing the audience the
opportunity to experience the innovative practices of the archival impulse, emotionally
engage with and ask questions of the artworks. He looks at Hirschhorn to support this by
quoting that he seeks to “distribute ideas,” “liberate activityʼ” and “radiate energy” which he
does with his “direct sculptures,” “altars,” “kiosks,” and “monuments” Foster implies that
these artists are less interested in ʻabsolute originsʼ and more with ʻobscure tracesʼ and
they are drawn to ʻunfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects, that might offer points of
departure againʼ. Foster refers to Tacita Deanʼs variety of mediums used in her art and
how she produces a more symbolic representation of archival work which he says is
ʻalways incompleteʼ. By looking at her various works including the “sound mirrors” at
Denge by Dungeness, he reiterates his point, as he calls it, a ʻreopened futureʼ or ʻpoint of
departure'. Durant serves to support Fosterʼs view of archival artists using mass culture in
a disturbed artistic form. His work is eclectic and disorderly yet still has a vital role in
archival art.
Fosterʼs article provides the audience with an informed view of contemporary archival art
by examining artisits on an international level. To support his points he looks at the
acclaimed archival artists Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant and Tacita Dean.

annotations

Rosalind E. Krauss

clock time

Ananlyses the practice of the artist Christian Marclay through his work clock time. Elements of film history are mentioned such as his play with the silent film era. Proposing that Marclay uses synchronicity as-' the undeniable support for post-1929 film and thus for cinema itself'.the way in which the artist uses synch sound in video quartet and synch time in the clock 'underlying conditions of film' are. how the use of synch time in the clock causes interpellation which is described 'as the subject "recognises" himself as the addressee of a command, thus identifying with the commander' via Althusser's “Ideological State of the Apparatuses”which causes the viewer to become passive. Kraus also states this interpellation synchronises the audience with the 'temporal unfolding of events in the film.' the 'plot unfolds through the sights of the dials displayed on clocks and watches, and the reaction shots of horrified characters in the...clips...members of the audience glance at their watches and realise that the precise moment displayed on the screen matches the moment registered on their own wrists'.Marclays story unfolds within film clips in which characters anticipate a catastropy. These clips taken from mainstream movies with characters such as Sean Connery but kraus states unlike these movies 'the temporal arcs that produce the plots..is not synchronised with the suspense unfolding in the viewer's real time'.Parallel to this Kraus goes on to mention how Annette Michelson characterises Michael Snow's Wavelength as 'the very distillation of suspense' in the contorting of horizons to create a narrative thus a feeling of 'distended temporality' occurs and how this turns upon our cognition thus suspending our resolution. Kraus ends by stating The Clock simultaneity,enacted by the synchronous gearing of reel time into real time, flirts with Husserl's desire for the self-present instant,the revelation of self-presence in the “now-effect.”

Hal Foster

An Archival Impulse

contemplates the Artistic urge towards the 'archival impulse.' Examples are given through the works of three prominent archival artists Thomas Hirschhorn,Sam Durant,Tacita Dean. These artists foster states that 'share a notion of artistic practice as an idiosyncratic probing into particular figures,objects,and events in modern art, philosophy, and history. Foster discerns that the trend of 'archival impulse with a distinctive character of its own is once again pervasive'.'archival artists seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present.to this end they elaborate on the found image,object,and text'.some archival art can push the 'post modern complications of originality others may imply the the optimum medium for archival art is the 'mega archive of the internet'.Foster states archival artists are often drawn to unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects-in art and history.'the archives at issue here are not databases in this sense:they are recalcitrantly material, fragmentary rather than fungible, and as such they call out for human interpretation'.Although they' remain indeterminate like the contents of any archive, and often are presented in this fashion'.Some archival artists play on the collection of the museum etc. but apparently not as critique? Foster does on to state 'in this respect archival art is often more “institutive” than “destructive, more “legislative” than “transgressive.”quoted on Derrida's terms of description to describe opposing drives in archive fever:a Freudian impression. In this article Hirschorn is the recoverer of 'radical figures',Dean 'recalls lost souls' and Durant's art brings to the surface 'repressed contents (to) return disruptively'.

SUMmary 'the archival impulse' Hal Foster

In 'The archival Impulse', Foster quickly ensures and with sniper like accuracy to identify that he is not compelled to assess the Van Ronkian beginnings of histography but more so with its failed ambitions and projects as point of departure form intellectualized linear progression to the notions of artistic record keeping.(3)[1] In order to outline the contemporary interest in such objectives foster presents us with multiple artists as if to subtly make reference to the ‘movement’. A smart witted underlying tongue in cheek gesture or maybe an over looked difference in reading?

The reader is asked to consider notions of the ‘archive’ in a standard under standing as the simple cataloguing of historical information in an organized and linear manner. Although as to quickly refute this Foster brings our attention to notions of the readymade. Here though how ever a link is made to the largest source of information currently available (from our couch). The internet be the most readily accessed un-organized catalogue of information available.[2] Foster ensures to point out that ‘archival art differs from database art’ and thus draws attention to the anthropological notions of the museum.

Foster focuses his following conversation under the two headlines of ‘Archive as Capitalist Garbage Bucket’ where by the work of Hirschhorn is discussed as dedications to artists, writers and philosophers and one may draw a frustration in the acceptance of free thought as it is noted he once functioned as a communist. The second being ‘Archive as Failed Futuristic Vision’ in which we are presented with the failed utopian visions of modernity, a failure in the sense of the attempt to direct the ‘cannon’ that was ultimately self annihilating as it sought to sink thoughts into the past.

Fosters reading is  effective and interesting the readers linear understanding of archive. In dispelling these notion a thought as to current modalities of archive are served up as a new and interesting form of artistic practice.

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[1] “But this relative disconnection from the present might be a distinctive mode of connection to it: a "whatever" artistic culture in keeping with a "whatever" political culture.” An interesting notion if one takes into account a current resurgence in the nihilist attitude as contemporary mode of critical engagement with post-structuralisms ever watchful and critical eye. It might be in saying ‘what ever’ that a critique of the notions of past linearity are sought to be essentially re-written.

[2] I think it important here thought to address the trending dangers in the use of such a largely authoured source, this in digital terms we could see this as a Tumblr-centric notion where critical engagement is dispelled in favour of aesthetic appreciation and thus re-authoring projecting a trajectory askew from original intentions. Please take note that I refer here to the aesthetic manner of this and am not unaware that the questionable nature of ‘truth’ is not one to be utilized and thus critiqued.

Article SUMmary/Evaluation 'Clock Time' Rosalind Kraus

In ‘Clock time’, Krauss begins with a very clear standpoint as to her terming of Marclay’s use of the cinematic medium what she terms to be ‘technical support’. Here Kruass defines her notions (via footnoting herself in the first paragraph) of the post-medium centric practices that she has observed in the contemporary period. A play if you will on the Greenburgian notions of medium specificity as the true notion of arts intent. Instead here we are asked to observe the very means of using the post-produced as to allow for production and critical engagement with what is presented before us (213).

In order to begin this analysis and terming of the framework we are asked to observe Marclay’s piece ‘Video Quartet’ (a four channel projection). By breaking down the ‘synchronicity of the pieces flow the reader is subtly asked to observe an evolutionary point in which the medium of cinema has progressed from a voiceless visual to that of a medium with a voice.[1]

As to further exemplify the medium of ‘cinema’ we are asked to consider the ‘masterpiece’ work of ‘the clock’ 2010 (214).[2] The introduction of the piece as ‘Projected in video on a wall as a segmented twelve by twenty-one foot image’ is one that I believe again plays on the very notions of medium specifity as to question, ‘what happens when the medium is bigger than the message’ or paradoxly from a viewing point ‘What happens when the message is bigger than the medium’?

In the use of the two works the reader is asked to take into account both ‘sound’ and ‘time’ with a particular importance drawn to the notion of 'synchronicity' (214, 216) as I believe to draw attention to the notion of the gaze.[3]

What is perception when essentially what has occurred is the highlighting of the parallax. The parallel space here being that of the very space of observation, the viewer is aware that the notion of the film has to have a cycle and I don't believe . The notion of the viewer and the hyper-real movement of a camera seamlessly floating through space only serve as to distance the viewer form the event and more specifically draw attention to a focus on the medium.[4] A period of self awareness is created in the hope to actually allow for the viewer to become aware of the self and its mere significance in the advent of the ‘suspenseful’ spectacle at hand.

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[1] Essentially an elevation of the mediums role upon the viewer or consumer. This could be likened to the post-post-production of Tim and Eric and their acceptance of the glitch as a means of causing a rupture in the typical viewing cycle of the television medium, how ever in this case a historiographical shift as to serve as a counterpoint in order to consider the very means of the abiity to post produce upon a medium.

[2] I would provide a breakdown of the format of the piece how ever this would serve to simply to undermined the very notions of the work being a masterpiece. It is via this label that I believe that anybody drawn to consider the article would have a clear understanding of the piece.

[3] Not only a feminist framework of interpretation as seen in the bond movies when the male spectator is also compelled to take on the role of the lead actor. The female gaze is also addressed essentially making it the perfect date movie. But also to the Lacanian notion of the ‘eye’ and the ‘gaze’ in this case how ever I don’t believe it to be the reflexive anxieties of a media saturated viewer in question but more so that of Marclay and what he might perceive as a stain in the medium. By acting as the stain here Marclay may serve himself as the sacrificial lamb in an attempt that his self removal, in place of recognizable imagery, will hopefully create a dialectical dessenus with the viewer.

[4] Derrida and post structuralism are used as a support for the means of which one can read the idea of 'technical support'. It is as if to say that by removing logical (or perhaps better 'learnt') Newtonian time that the viewer is subject to a philosophical reading of the understanding of everyday media and its effect on understanding of medium. It is via this noton of spectacle that I think that the worn couches now in storage would reflect a different story. It is as if the spectacle of the blockbuster (both in its size of screen and seating arrangement) that has created a sense of inertia in the public that sought past the uncomfortable critique of the self as subject. In the 'notion of checking ones watch' against that of Derrida's statement that any inward thought is one of fiction. Marclay here has caused the viewer to undergo a subconscious post-structural reading of themselves as viewer. It is not the screen that is the point of critique but instead the audience who has become the 'technical support' in the pieces critique. Suspense maybe an attempt as to create a sense of waiting but it is in this typical structure of film narrative (lets wait for the sequel) that I believe that Marclay has not given the Newtonian hand the slap that it deserves. Instead the clocks hand has taken a seat and what has occurred is essentially a careful skilled youtubian snippet of the day of a stoner. Sorry Krauss but its back to the beug and couch for you.

Summary –Hal Foster

In this essay examines three contemporary artists whose work uses the concept of archives, he choose to look at Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant, and Tacita Dean while there are many artists use archival today.

The first and probably the most notable function of archival art is to “make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present. To this end elaborate on the found image, object, and favor the installation format. Foster suggests that while art has absorbed much of the language of the digital age, like “inventory,” “sample,” “share,” and “interactivity,” archival art remains an obstinately physical calling for “human interpretation, not mechanic reprocessing.

The three artists he mentioned made very different archival works. The first he pointed is Thomas Hirschhorn who creates direct sculptures, altars, kiosks, and monuments. Each of these installations focuses on historical figures, such as artists and philosophers, and attempt to “expose different audiences to alternative archives of public culture. Tacita Dean uses many mediums to recall “lost souls” in her work. Foster notes that archival artists are “often drawn to unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects” a theme undoubtedly present in Dean’s work, she presents the past as always incomplete. In one example of her work she retraces the steps of a stowaway girl and records the coincidences that seem to echo the girls journey that ended in a shipwreck. The last artist Foster discusses is Sam Durant. Durant is similar to Dean in that he uses multiple mediums in this work but differs in that his source material is much more eclectic pulling from the histories of rock-and-roll, art, architecture, literature, social activism, as well as others. He often pairs these materials in a way that seems to encourage disorder. One example is his citing of Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed installed on the campus of Kent State, the site of the shooting of four students by National Guardsman.

The move to turn excavation sites into construction sites is welcome in another way too, it suggest a shift away from a melancholic culture that views the historical as little more than the traumatic.

Clock Time summary

In this article, Rosalind E.Krauss pointed about the Christian Marclay and his one of his most latest artwork The Clock. The technical support is commercial sound film from which he has extrapolated that process into pure synchoronicity. This work is also a compilation of film clip.

The Clock a 24 hour running combination of film clips which while being projected relate to each exact time of day. In The Clock , we confront what must be called another of the underlying conditions of film-synch time. The clock synch-time joins viewer and screen in the manner of what the film scholars call interpellation. In attracts the audience and makes them thinking about the time and the space they are in, however by watching the work they also lose track of time by thinking about it. Marclay’s The Clock exploits the cutway as its “plot” unfolds through the sights of the dials displayed on clocks and watches.

The Clock by Marclay has some relationship with the real time. The Clock’s simultaneity, enacted by the synchronous gearing of reel time into real time. Marclay manages this by turning to suspense as the extended dilation of the now effect, transforming the reel time of film into the real time of waiting.

Clock Time - Rosalind Krauss

Clock Time

In this essay Krauss talks about Christin Marclay's unusual choice of medium, a video artist using commercial film as his medium.  In his work Video Quartet (2002) he uses sound, often to highlight silence and in his mor recent work The Clock (2010) he uses time. In The Clock, which was recently displayed at the MCA, he has selected sections of commercial films showing a clock and placed them in order to form a clock which then plays over a 24hour time period.  What is interestion about this work is it's use as a clock by using clocks.  Where Video Quartet's focus was on sound, or lack of, The Clock focuses on time.  In engages the audience and makes them think about time and the space they are in, however by watching the work they also loose track of time by thinking about it.  It also features the shots of actors reactions to the time, which in turn makes the audience look at their watch, seeing it is the same time, should they be having the same reaction? The Clock brings to light a new medium of time. The combination of he time in moovies - reel time - into the real time of the current, humanising the often fictional movies and putting them in the present. 

An Archival Impulse - Hal Foster

An Archival Impulse

In An Archival Impulse, Hal Foster discusses how the archive is once again a popular form of art making since it first emerged in the pre-war period.  Archival art is often historically based, with artists wanting to physically present lost or forgotten infomation.  This can take numerous forms with most artists tening towards installation.

Foster makes reference to the artworks of Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean and Sam Durant who all work with the archive in completely different ways.  This shows the diversity in which the archive can be sed, researched and presented.  Hirschhorn works in public spaces creating his sculptures, altart, kiosks and monuments and aims to "connect what can not be connected." Dean finds neglected historical stories and follows them up or re-enacts them and often her work is unfinished or ongoing and the findings of her exploration.  She is ofter drawn to stories of abandonment and failure, the opposite of Hirschhorn whose art rotates around known cultural figures such as artists and writers.  Durant shows the struggle between the upper class of design and the working class through multiple mediums (drawing, photography, sculpture, sound, video and installation) and presents these in an unpredictable way.

Ultimately that are all searching and trying to piece together their own parts of the world.  To bring together infomation, find the missing pieces and their art making is a collection, combination or ramification of this infomation.

Rosalind Krauss- Clock time

Rosalind Krauss discusses Christian Marclay and one of his most latest works “The Clock”, a twenty-four hour running piece, comprised of fragments of commercial films which collectively transition from on to another. In Krauss’ deconstruction of the piece, she recognises not only the formal qualities and cinematic technique but also the viewer experience and audience perception and role in being a part of this semi-interactive 2010 work.

Marclay is seen through this work as taking “pure synchronicity” to new heights. Credit is given to Marclay in the films ability to smoothly transition from one scene to the next while simultaneously holding time with the real and present. Krauss uses examples of “Ideological state apparatuses” and the cinematic techniques of cutaways that add to the fluidity and worth of the work. Cutaways, used in film to inform viewers of the temporal unfolding of events within the films narrative, is utilised in Marclay’s “The Clock” as the plot of the work, where scenes of the protagonist glancing at their watch or backdrops of a ticking clock make viewers weary or conscious of time and in doing so call audiences to glance or query actual time, only to realise the film itself and the present are synchronised to the minute. With this Marclay creates a tension or form of anticipation of counting down towards something dramatic happening.

 Unlike typical films, “The clock” is seen to make to viewer somewhat part of the scene, in feeling included in the shared aspect of time, and aware of oneself in that particular moment in time also adds to the work’s value, as opposed to being purely a spectator. Derrida’s concept of “self-presence” being fiction can be seen as threatened by Marclay’s extension or exploration of this specific medium , playing on the idea of the self-present instant, the revelation of self-presence in the “ now-effect” and the notion of transforming the reel time of film into the real time of waiting.

Hal Foster- An Archival Impulse

Hal Foster covers the complex and varied concept of Archival works, understanding that the commonality that these works share is a notion of artistic practice as an idiosyncratic of delving into specific figures, objects and events in modern art, philosophy and history. Through this Foster examines varied approaches through the work of Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant and Tacita Dean, which all exemplify how an archival impulse can operate internationally in the contemporary art world.

A typical approach for archival artists can be argued as purely drawing upon the past and cataloguing or organising history into the present, typically exhibited as installations, but with further examination this can be seen as only a small approach to archival impulse art. An interesting point is how the contemporary is enabled to experiment with the information we are presented with particularly how the relatable mass culture can stabilise a legibility that can then be manipulated. Furthering this idea that information in a contemporary sense can appear as a virtual readymade, implying that the ideal medium of archival art being the internet, calls for human interpretation of our interactivity with it.

Foster’s subcategorises Hirschhorn’s works into ‘direct sculptures’, ‘altars’ ‘kiosks’ and ‘monuments all of which engage with their archival materials, direct sculptures tending to aim to reconfigure a message disparate to the original purpose of the archival material, the altars which follow are seen as commemorations which can be seen as holding emotive significance, whereas kiosks are purely informational, and monuments a fusing of both concepts of information and devotion. On the contrary Foster utilises artist Tacita Dean to express the other retrospective of archival art, to pain the human soul and see the archive as failed futuristic visions. Dean looks towards drawing on the narrative of people, things and places of the stranded or forgotten. Foster furthering point through the example of the Denge “sound mirrors”, abandoned remnants of a failed futuristic vision, and Dean’s interest with archival failure. Her works are seen as a portal between the unfinished history and re-opened future. Durant is seen to represents the “theoretical” space between forms, seen as eclectic in his samplings. His work is seen as a framing of the historic of a particular, offering critical perspective and revisions of the past. His further archival developments look at advanced art, rock culture and civil rights, which he collects and re gathers the past to create new views or reassesses how we see these histories.

Foster fuses the approaches of all three contemporary artists to demonstrate the continuum of archival impulses, and advertises the alternative views of what archival impulses may involve in reopening how we see the past.

Summary: Clock Time – Rosalind E. Krauss

In this article Krauss looks into the work of Christian Marclay, prominently his latest piece, The Clock (2010), a 24 hour running combination of film clips which while being projected relate to each exact time of day. ‘Technical support’ is made necessary for his work, this term is the use of ‘commercial or industrial products’ and for Marclay this being commercial sound film.

‘Synch-time’ is the result of the combination of the films individual frames being projected at the viewer and the optics created to produce the retinal construction of the after-image, the ‘phi-effect’ - creating the illusion of movement. The result of this can often achieve a sense of a suspension of disbelief, where the viewer can become enveloped into the film and the position of the characters, being empathetic to their situation and feelings.

In Marclay’s The Clock the exact moment in time displayed on the screen corresponds to the ‘real time’ of the viewer. The use of cutaways creates suspense in the work as the ‘plot’ (time being shown through views of clocks, watches and dials in each film clip) unravels with the characters and their reactions to each reflected moment in time portrayed on screen, ‘reel time’. Each clip he uses becomes part of the overall plot, where the characters used await moments of catastrophe: a bomb’s explosions or a missile strike. However the suspense created in Marclay’s The Clock in ‘real time’ does not correspond to that of the original film that they were extracted from.

The relationship between the ‘reel time’ of Marclay’s The Clock and the ‘real time’ of the viewers creates a realisation and sense of present time and self-presence in the ‘now effect’. The exploration of The Clock in its use ‘technical support’ is a feat by Marclay, consequently creating a new medium.

Summary: An Archival Impulse – Hal Foster

In this essay Hal Foster discusses the presence of archival art in contemporary art through the use of three contemporary artists, Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant, and Tacita Dean - who share the same notions of ‘artistic practice as an idiosyncratic probing into particular figures, objects, and events in modern art, philosophy, and history’.

The main purpose of archival art is to ‘make historical information, often lost or displayed, physically present. To this end they elaborate on the found image, object and text, and favour the installation format’. Artists often use ambiguous references and as these sources are often found, archival art can be seen as art of ‘post-production’. The information so easily available on the internet as ‘virtual readymade’ ‘might imply that (this source is) the ideal medium of archival art’. However archival art are not databases, and are ‘fragmentary rather than fungible’ so as to remain for ‘human interpretation, not machinic reprocessing’.

Archival art can also be seen with likeness to museums, however the primary distinction between the two is that these artists ‘are not concerned with critiques of representational totality and institutional integrity.’ Another point behind what archival art is that it ‘not only draws in informational archives but produces them as well... (where) all archival materials as found yet constructed, factual yet fictive, public yet private’.  Archival art placing its found materials within a new context, whether with private or public collections, within a new situation so it can be read in its own way by the viewer.

Archival art attempts to relate and ‘connect what cannot be connected’, from the desire ‘to recoup failed visions in art, philosophy, and everyday life into possible scenarios of alternative kinds of social relations, to transform the no-place of the archive into the no-place of a utopia’.

HAL FOSTER - An Archival Impulse

Soda_Jerk with Sam Smith

Still from Hollywood Burn, 2011
Digital video, sound, 16:9
Duration: 52 min


     Hal Foster’s “An Archival Impulse” is a critical framework of understanding artists’ practice in archival art. Foster focuses on Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant, and Tactica Dean  who share the notion of their artistic practice as an idiosyncratic.  Archival art is hardly new, it has been active since the prewar period (where there was a focus political and technological archival art), and postwar period (appropriation) and even now in contemporary art (with the internet becoming a prominent factor in our daily lives).

Archival artists seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present - bringing something previously lost to the forefront. The artists use the found image, object, and text, as well as installation. Some artists draw inspiration from visual narratives, or rather, films. Douglas Gordon creates these “time readymades” that are drawn from the archives of mass culture. In contemporary art, it has become even more accessible for artists and even the public to get ahold of ‘the Hollywood archives’. Contemporary artists that form Soda Jerk take advantage of the internet, recreating memorable film scenes that allows viewers to engage with those films in a different way. This can also be seen in Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010). 

Hal Foster explores the postmodernists complications of originality and authorship. We are shown archival art at its darkest. There has been a slight shift of the archival, a different view in contemporary art that does not explore this darkness. We can see this through the mega-archive of the internet.  There is a human interpretation, not machinic reprocessing. The archives are not indiscriminate, they are indeterminant. The archival art has become about the preproduction as much as the postproduction. The artists choose archives that are unfulfilled or incomplete that leaves a air of uncertainty and a continuous incomplete cycle of the archives. 

There is a clear distinction of the artist-as-archivist and the artist-as-curator. The archivist’s toy with the ‘museum collection’. The archivists orientation of their art is  more “‘institutive’ than ‘destructive,’ more ‘legislative’ than ‘transgressive.’” Foster has observed that the museum's reputation has been ruined, that in the public sphere they are a orderly, logical and aesthetically consistent in their displays. With this in mind the archivist’s may bring forth the dusty archives hidden within the museums but still retain the museums coherent system of presentation. 

It is important to note that there is a constant continuation of archival art. They are forever being produced, whether “found or constructed, factual yet fictive, or public yet private.”

ROSALIND KRAUSS - Clock Time

                                                            

Christian Marclay

Still from The Clock, 2010

Single-channel video 24 hours

Christian Marclay explores synchronous time and technical support through the use of medium specificity. One of Marclay’s prominent mediums to use in his artistic practices is the use of film. Marclay’s films allows the viewer to feel a greater connection to his art, involving them to a point of suspense. 

  Rosalind Krauss mentions the “technical support”. In contemporary art, which makes recurring references of commercial or industrial products (in the case Marclay’s reference to film in an archival manner) in “the manner of modernist art’s reflex of self-criticism. In his  artwork Video Quartet, 2002, he uses this commercial sound film and uses different ways to show synchronicity either visually and through contrasts of sound and silence. Marclay wants his viewers to see the silence (here there is a reference to the importance of the  Jazz Singer as the first talkie in 1929). 

Christian Marclay’s most recent work The Clock, 2010 uses the archival method of reusing fragments of film. There is a doubling of temporal focus (as it stretches over 24hrs). Marclay uses pure synchronicity as his accompaniment of actual time. In The Clock he uses ‘synch time’ with 24 frames a second and the psycho-physiological facts of optics for the frame to invisibly slip into the next. Krauss talks of the importance of “Ideological State Apparatuses” that allows Marclay’s viewers to be transported to each scene as the camera becomes the eyes of the viewer. Marclay uses the cutaway as its plot, effectively creating a suspense where the actors and viewers anticipate a catastrophe that could happen at any moment. 

Krauss draws comparison to Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers “Dial M for Murder” and “Strangers on a Train”. Here the suspense is identified unreeling on the screen that is out of synchronization with the viewers. However in Marclay’s The Clock, the suspense is created as the plot continually unfolds bringing back the anticipation of a catastrophe as each minute passes. 

The Clock uses Husserl’s ‘self-present instant,’ the self-presence in the ‘now-effect’ “transforming the reel time of film into the real time of waiting”. 

Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss

Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss.

The main point that can be extracted from this reading is how Marclay has used the medium of ‘technical support’, as well as synchronicity to enhance the eclipse of his video works, such as The Clock. To further explain this, Krauss has categorized the idea of ‘time’ into several subdivisions.

The experience of viewing the film is made up of literal ‘reel time’, ‘real time’, and ‘now time’. Each element of ‘time’ either absorbs the viewer into the suspense of the film, or removes them so that they can establish their own ‘real time’ and be brought back to the ‘now present’. This is achieved through the characters in the film that are constantly expecting a tragedy: a bomb explosion, or a missile attack. It is within this fast moving pace, that Marclay has used the ‘cutaway’ of the scenes as the plot.

Within the length of the The Clock, the technique of ‘synch time’ (the projection of 24 frames a second, synchronized with the physio-psychological facts of optics) have been used in order to allow the film to flow rapidly, despite being created from multiple different slides, with a strong cut off point.

Opposing this is the ‘phi-effect’, which is the after image, established through the synchronization of the projected frames and the process of optical intake. Regardless of the ease in which the individual clips flow, the viewer will still hold on to the after image for a moment into the duration of the next slide.  

The ‘technical support’ Marclay has used, has becomes a new medium, in which he has used commercial sound film and has induced ‘pure synchronicity.’

Another interesting point that Krass has raised is how Marclay has harmonized the ‘reel time’ into our ‘real time’, allowing the viewer to be fully engaged with the film, and sense that these events could happen at any moment.